There is another issue related to this subject. It is perspective it self.
FOV defines only a window we are looking through. But another important thing is vanishing point - how far it is placed from camera (eye). It defines "how fast objects will go to be smaller while moving out from camera".

If perspective is wrong we could try to fix it changing fov, but still we get unrealistic results, for example: small-looking buildings around. The same "phenomena" appear on screenshots with 2 cars chasing each other. It looks like (we feel that) car closer to camera is 2 times bigger than car at front. Most skewed perspective I remember has GTL. But rF1 is not perfect. I don't know a reason why developers give us wrong perspective. to make possible to see more through windscreen or to "pleasure us" by more "speed" feeling.

Bleh, you call people with 80-90 FOV insane? I think YOU are insane with that crazy low field of view.

It's all a matter of taste. Neither setting is realistic. It depends on how you "imagine" the game. If you include your racing wheel and desk setup/rig as your "imagined" car then sure, you might be comfortable with a very low FOV. However if you are like me, you can "imagine" yourself inside the screen, looking at the virtual wheel and dashboard. Immersion is greatly enhanced by a fairly large FOV, from 70-90, depending on the car. I have very good/wide peripheral vision (was tested for this when recruited for the military) and use it all the time to judge distances and motion. I absolutely hate small FOV with a narrow view, it makes me claustrophobic and doesn't help my driving at all.

I don't like how the virtual wheel and dashboard seem so far away at larger FOVs but then I simply compensate by moving the virtual seat forward instead. Easy and works wonders.

It's also much safer to race other guys with a proper field of view and then you don't usually have to rely on crappy virtual mirrors either which are huge immersion killers for me.

But remember, that with high FOV distance to other cars is "faked" (distance is closer than it appears). You think that you have some space to someone's bumper but in fact you are almost there.
When talking about natural FOV, I mean how perspective is changing when you turn your virtual head in cokpit view... but as you said, it's a matter of personal preference. No one will kill you for using high FOV, but at least it's good you know prons and cons for both settings

No, it's not faked any more than a narrow/small FOV. It's a matter of how you "look" or "imagine" it. If I have a car slightly to my left or right I look at it on screen as it would be my peripheral vision.

It's all about attitude and how you are trained to look at things. None of this is more or less realistic, it's just a matter of practice/what we are used to meaning it depends on what our reference point is. If it's the real physical wheel or the virtual wheel inside the cockpit.

Sorry, can't explain it as good as I'd like because I can't find the correct English words.

Nope. If you calculate your correct FOV then the visual scaling and distance representation you see through that window are as realistic as any simulator can get.. Next

Originally Posted by bmanic

Immersion is greatly enhanced by a fairly large FOV, from 70-90, depending on the car.

[ih-mur-zhuhn, -shuhn] 3. state of being deeply engaged or involved; absorption.

You can't be more out of the action then staring at this game through a fisheye lens mounted to the headrest of a chair and you watching it all on tv. Seeing "more" does not necessarily make something more immersive. Having your brain confuse real from virtual however, does.

Originally Posted by bmanic

It's also much safer to race other guys with a proper field of view

No argument from me. It is way more dangerous driving like this even with triple-head then say, driving swingman with full view of 100 feet around the entire car or alone in singleplayer. And who wants racing to be dangerous and exciting anyways?

I think bmanic mix two things. Field of view given by hardware (monitor) and attempt to simulate how human see in reality.
Of course if you set large FOV on relatively small monitor, you will see more than with low FOV. It is true. But this way you just fake perspective to get wider view in smaller display area (the same way like using wide-angle objective in your camera)

But human doesn't see things like this. He still has ability to see around for about 180* but in world surroundings him. If you would have 20m x 10m monitor, I believe your FOV would be quite small to get real world dimensions and perspective.
Just imagine a window in the building. If you are looking through this, your see less. Monitor is like that window. You are watching virtual reality through it. So why the perspective should be skewed in world on the other side of the window?

Of course you can say that you like larger fov because:
- you can see more at once without turning camera
- you feel more speed - indeed with larger FOV and unchanged distance to vanishing point (or to backclip plane in therms of 3d gfx) the same objects looks like moving faster which is not true.
but you can't say it's real.

I don't think those low FOV's are any more realistic than lets say use 60 FOV with seat more forward.
Low FOV's look way too zoomed in, not realistic, atleast not how I see the world.
When I sit in my car I see my steeringwheel, I see the dashboard, I see my rearview mirrors, I see the windscreen and windscreen wipers.

I also would like to ask to Tim Weathly that the cam hacking shown in one of the vids, where the poster can hack into a bonnet view or even roof view, should not possible when "forced cockpit" is enabled on a server online, otherwise the forced cockpit view is worth nothing anymore .

I think bmanic mix two things. Field of view given by hardware (monitor) and attempt to simulate how human see in reality.
Of course if you set large FOV on relatively small monitor, you will see more than with low FOV. It is true. But this way you just fake perspective to get wider view in smaller display area (the same way like using wide-angle objective in your camera)

But human doesn't see things like this. He still has ability to see around for about 180* but in world surroundings him. If you would have 20m x 10m monitor, I believe your FOV would be quite small to get real world dimensions and perspective.
Just imagine a window in the building. If you are looking through this, your see less. Monitor is like that window. You are watching virtual reality through it. So why the perspective should be skewed in world on the other side of the window?

Of course you can say that you like larger fov because:
- you can see more at once without turning camera
- you feel more speed - indeed with larger FOV and unchanged distance to vanishing point (or to backclip plane in therms of 3d gfx) the same objects looks like moving faster which is not true.
but you can't say it's real.

best regards

Nope, you didn't understand what I was trying to say. It's not your fault though as I do not know how to explain it. For me a FOV setting of less than 50 is ridiculously unrealistic simply because that is not the way I see in the real world. I do not have a need to make the steering wheel "realistic size" as I am projecting my imagination "inside" the sim. I'm not using the computer monitor as a "window".

To me this is like comparing a picture book to a book with text only. Neither is "realistic" but I much prefer the one with text when it comes to fiction.

OK guys. Human's peripheral vision is about or even over 180*. That means, you see things in front of you, left and right (slightly limited though). When you sit in front of your monitor/TV, do you see picture from your computer on your left? Nope... On your right? Nope...(until you have 3 or more displays ;-) ) so, only in front and until you have 50" panoramic screen and sit 1-1,5m from it, we can assume we have relatively small picture on our display.
So, for me that "window" to PC picture is like I'd look through small box (limiting my FOV). So when I'm sitting in my seat, having my steering wheel in front of me, I want to have on my TV (which is about 50-60cm in front of my steering wheel) picture that I'd have like in real car. Of course that still won't be 100% realistic, because usually steering wheels are offseted from dashboard for about 20-40cm. To simulate that I need bigger TV and slightly oversized picture to compensate that bigger space between my steering wheel and TV.

You bmanic prefer to have your POV like in-game camera. Because of that, you want wide FOV on your display (even though it will be a few times smaller that what you see in real world, unless you have giant 3 displays connected horizontaly).

I think we can agree to that point, that it's a matter of personal preference, right?

OK, now let's move on to something that I think you still haven't noticed (that's why I asked ZeosPanthera to make a video with high FOV and look around in cockpit) - with high FOV and small narrow (16:9 or 16:10 is very narrow, compared to human's ~180 deg. horizontal vision, right?) displays the picture will have shrinked perspective (fisheye effect). Vertical FOV of 60 deg. on a 16:10 display gives us 96deg. of horizontal view!
Now, how far from your monitor do you sit? 80cm (31.5 in.)? So, you have your 45-50cm wide display (which is typically 21-24" widescreen) with 96deg FOV.
96deg is 48deg to left and 48 to right. Now, take simple ruller-like protractor put it on your chest, so when you look down you will see angles, and take 48deg to the left and right, counting from looking forward. Then imagine where would the lines go from center of the protractor, through your 48 deg markings, when you would have a wall 80cm in front of you.
How wide area you will get? You can calculate that: 2x (tg (48deg)*80cm) = ~177.7cm (~70 in.). That's how wide picture you would have 80cm in front of you with 96 deg FOV. Almost 180cm! And you what have on your monitor? 45-50cm? That's almost 3.5 times narrower picture compared to what you have in real life... To make that happen, there must be something done and that is - game's engine must modify perspective. You can see that when you look at both edges of generated picture. All items are stretched, right? When a car is going past you it looks sooo stretched... but when it will past you and move more towards the center of your display, then it gets smaller and like it would be far in front of you.
I will do a video showing that effect, compared to natural perspective. Hope you will finally see what's wrong with high FOV because it's not about how far from the dash you sit. I can move the cam far behind and sit 2 meters from the dash with FOV 20 deg... on the other hand, I can move the camera in rF so that with FOV 60 deg you will be sitting with your chin on the dashboard, but that won't make high FOV perspective less deformed

bmanic,
We have nothing against you imagination. Just not say it is realistic
simple question: when you are in your imagined environment with skewed perspective, can you read LCD data in front of you? Maybe excep of big gear indicator - you cannot. That's why it is not real.

but I got your point: you want to see on monitor all things you could catch by your real life ability.
Problem is rather in rFactor itself. Changing fov you do not change perspective to match new FOV resulting fish-eye effect. To get what you want with correct perspective you should set low FOV and move camera back to see whole cockpit. But it is impossible in the game without tweaking in-game cam position in cam file

I want to show you side-effect of using improper perspective. Screenshot is from GTL but doesn't matter. It is the same problem and I have no rF screenshots with such big FOV. Second car looks like completely different, really smaller.

This is side-effect of yousing big FOV in gMotor based environments and what you call "looking real".

More, with this kind of view, you got feeling of greater speed which is also not real. There is no such revelation driving a car about 200kmph on race circuits. Those circuits are wide like 5-lane highway. And you simply doesn't feel NFS-like speed.